Matthew Hornung, left, and Clarence "Chuck" Mabanag, center, two of four former Oakland police officers known as "The Riders," and defense attorney Michael Rains are shown during a recess in the first day of the former officers' trial Thursday, Sept. 12, 2002, at Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland, Calif. A third officer, Jude Siapno, is also on trial while the fourth, Frank Vazquez, remains fugitive. A prosecutor in the case said the officers systematically set up young black men and conjured false accusations against them to feed their egos. (AP Photo/The Oakland Tribune, Ray Chavez)

Former Oakland police officers Clarence Mabanag, left, Jude Siapno, second from left, and Mabanag's lawyer Michael Rains, far right, listen to opening statements in the trial of the two former officers and a third former officer Matthew Hornung, in a courtroom in Oakland, Calif., Thursday, Sept. 12, 2002. The three former police officers systematically set up young black men and conjured false accusations against them to feed their egos, according to the prosecutor in ``The Riders'' case. (AP Photo/The Oakland Tribune, Ray Chavez)

Assistant District Attorney David Hollister shows off a photograph of Delphine Allen, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2002 who was allegedly beaten up in West Oakland, Calif on June 20, 2000 by former Oakland Police officers known as the Riders as Judge Leo Dorado, background, looks on during the first day of trial for former officers Clarence Mabanag, Matt Hornung, Jude Siapno at Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland, Calif. The officers face a combined 26 felony counts, including beating suspects and falsifying police reports. Siapno faces the most serious charges, including kidnapping and assault.(AP Photo/TheOakland Tribune, Ray Chavez)

Photo: RAY CHAVEZ

Assistant District Attorney David Hollister shows off a photograph...

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The corner 14th and Peralta is considered the center of West Oakland and ground zero for the four Oakland Police officers under investigation for misconduct known as "The Riders". (KENDRA LUCK/SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE)

Fugitive ex-cop Francisco "Choker" Vazquez was not in court Thursday, but his alleged brutality and dishonesty are at the heart of the criminal trial of three of his fellow Oakland police officers.

Vazquez, 45, is believed to be the ringleader of a group of rogue cops who called themselves the "Riders" as they patrolled the streets of West Oakland during the graveyard shift. For almost two years since he was charged with kidnapping and assault, Vazquez has been a fugitive, and he is believed to have fled the country.

As his three former colleagues went on trial Thursday on felony charges that include kidnapping, assault, conspiracy and obstruction of justice, Assistant District Attorney David Hollister talked extensively about Vazquez in his opening statements.

The veteran training officer bragged about beating up a drug suspect in the back of patrol car after emptying a canister of pepper spray into his mouth, then glossed over the incident in a police report and pressured the beaten suspect, Delphine Allen, to sign a falsified account, Hollister said.

In another incident, Vazquez told a rookie cop to forget what he learned in the academy and to "f-- probable cause, just jump out and grab" the suspect, Hollister told jurors.

Although prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed not to mention his fugitive status in front of the jury, Hollister said outside court that he planned to "try this case as if Frank Vazquez was sitting there." Vazquez's absence creates a problem for the defense, concede attorneys for the three fired cops on trial -- Clarence "Chuck" Mabanag, 37, Matt Hornung, 30, and Jude Siapno, 33.

"We are greatly disadvantaged without him," said Michael Rains, who is representing Mabanag. "Frank Vazquez was mouthy. But he was more bark than bite."

Rains and attorneys for the other two defendants will present their side in opening statements Tuesday. Rains said the fired officers were scapegoats who had written "some sloppy police reports" but committed no crimes.

Hollister said members of the Riders referred to their work as the "the dark side." They would "hit corners" or speed to drug intersections in an unmarked van, grab a few suspects, plant drugs on them, then write false reports to justify the arrests and conceal wrongdoing, he said.

The motive for their crimes was not financial gain but the prestige of being applauded by their bosses and admired by younger cops in the department for making arrests.

"The defendants fed off this attention," Hollister said. "They liked being looked up to by the younger officers. . . . They were producing numbers."

The Riders got away with it because their squad "worked virtually unsupervised," he said. "They found it easy to go off and freelance, to work on their own."

Most of their eight alleged victims had criminal records and were easy targets, Hollister said, because their word usually would not be taken over that of a police officer. The alleged victims and many witnesses are illiterate, unsophisticated men who "don't know how to spell the names of streets they travel on every day," he said.

The victims and witnesses include a man that Hollister successfully prosecuted in an earlier unrelated drug case as well as an acknowledged crack addict.

"They are who they are," Hollister said. "One thing they all have in common is that they are the perfect victims for the defendants. They are inarticulate,

uneducated and defenseless."

The undoing of the Riders, Hollister said, came about because a rookie police officer assigned to learn the ropes with Mabanag quickly grew disgusted.

The day after the officer, Keith Batt, quit the department, he reported the Riders to police internal affairs investigators. Batt is expected to take the stand Wednesday.

"What Keith Batt learned as he began this training is that he wasn't necessarily being trained to be a police officer," the prosecutor said. "He was being trained to join a clique -- a clique that called themselves the Riders."